This century-old visit of a British officer to Herat is chiefly notable for its revelations as to the attitude of the Afghan Government and people towards the English at the time it was made. With the exception of the risk inseparable from travel in a lawless country infested with organised bands of professional robbers, there appears to have been no hostility bred by fanaticism or suspicion of the trend of British policy. Afghanistan was socially in about the same stage of development that France was in the days of Louis XI.--or England a little earlier; and it is only the solidity conferred on Afghan administration by the moral support of the British Government which has effected any real change. Were England to abandon India to-morrow there would be nothing to prevent a lapse into the same condition of social anarchy which prevailed a century ago. India would become the bait for ceaseless activity on the part of every Afghan border chief who thought he had following sufficient to make a raid effective. A thin veneer of civilization has crept into Afghanistan with motors and telegraphs, but with it also has arisen new incentives to hostility from dread of a possible loss of independence, and (in the western parts of Afghanistan) from real fanatical hatred to the infidel. Thus Afghanistan is actually more dangerous as a field of exploration to the individual European at the present moment than it was in the days of Christie and Pottinger. At the same time, British military assistance would not only be welcome nowadays in case of a conflict with a foreign enemy, but it would be claimed as the fulfilment of a political engagement and expected as a right. Christie's stay at Herat seems to have been quite uneventful, and when he left for Persia no one barred his way. The Persian frontier then seems to have been rather more than 20 miles distant from Herat--Christie places it a mile beyond the village of "Sekhwan," 22 miles from the city. The only place which appears to correspond with the position of Sekhwan now is Shakiban, which probably represents another village. Making rapid progress westward through Persia, he eventually reached Ispahan, where he rejoined Pottinger on June 30. It must have been a hot and trying experience!